


The Great Game

by disastertown



Category: My Chemical Romance, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Crying, Dizziness, M/M, Murder Mystery, Nausea, Panic, Sickness, Strained Friendships, Temporary Amnesia, a lot of highschool flashbacks, arguing by the fireplace, keeping someone as a pet, re-digging of a past murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-12 16:31:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1192002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disastertown/pseuds/disastertown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank finds himself in 221 Baker Street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fireplace

**Author's Note:**

> The relationships/characters/tags may change a bit because I don't know exactly where this story might go.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The relationships/characters/tags may change a bit because I don't know exactly where this story might go.

The fireplace crackled in front of his body, casting dancing orange lights across his clothes as well as the backsides of his hands. He was beginning to feel his toes again, and thank god he was capable to hold the cup of cocoa now without splattering it all over the rug from his shaking. The immense shaking had indeed stopped, and he felt his hoodie and jeans slowly beginning to turn warm but there were still shivers of cold that had seeped into the most inner sides of his body that refused to come out and he still couldn’t seem to talk because of a tight knot that seemed to have formed in his throat, freezing his heart from being out in the icy weather for so long. He was going to catch a cold, of course. He could feel himself becoming lightheaded and hot in the head and that had nothing to do with the cocoa or the fireplace. He dug his toes into the furry teeth of the rug and felt thankful for whoever had stopped the pain of slowly freezing to death. He tried to enjoy the last moments of lightheadedness before the sickness hit him. His body knew from years of occasional colds and flus that this time it would come very soon. Focusing on the condition of his physical health was a distraction that would help him ignore another annoying issue, because someone was shouting behind his back, about him, about the situation.

“Sherlock! What were you thinking? Don’t you know this is illegal? I’m trying not to call Lestrade, and I’m trying to help you but you don’t seem to care. You think you can just walk out of any situation with the police because Mycroft will fetch you out, he always fetches you out, maybe that’s why you never think how serious things can lead to but this, this involves- what are you going to do if you get caught? What if we get caught and your brother might not be able to fetch you out this time?”

“John,” a man with a deep voice started.

They were sure going to get caught if the man kept yelling like that- he was sure the neighbors would hear, Frank thought as he sipped his cocoa coolly like he didn’t give a damn, which was true. He was getting out of here soon anyway, next morning at the latest if they were kind enough to let him sleep here. He wasn’t interested in staying for a long time with a bunch of English people in the middle of London, though judging from the clothes they seemed to wear and the choice of furniture as well as the fact that this was a flat in downtown London, they seemed to be pretty rich. But he had stuff to do, and if it wasn’t for the fact that these people had saved his life, he would have accused them for intercepting in his way.

“Relax, John,” a kind woman’s voice said, as if reflecting Frank’s thoughts perfectly, “He was just trying to help a homeless man. Isn’t that right? I mean look at him for god’s sake, he would have frozen to death if Sherlock hadn’t taken him home…”

Homeless? Okay, Frank probably didn’t have a home now. Gosh, a part of him just wanted to ditch everything and fly back to New Jersey. He couldn’t go back, though, of course.

“Ms. Hudson,” the person who had been yelling had relaxed a bit now, “You know Sherlock, he doesn’t’ just help and I don’t know for sure why he brought him home, but-“

“But what’s the big deal? He’ll leave in the morning after he has some time to recover won’t you sweetheart?” 

The woman was addressing him. Oh, so they were kind enough to let him sleep here where it was warm. But he wasn’t sure if- what was the name? John would approve. He seemed pretty upset. He looked down at his cocoa. The marshmellows had almost melted, and he made an effort to swallow one before it completely dissolved in the brown liquid by tipping the cup in an angle since there was no spoon. It was a success. He could feel the squashy thing between his teeth before he washed it down with the warm milk.

There was a moment of silence and Frank began to wonder why he was sitting on the floor. He sighed. He could feel that all of their eyes were on him, waiting for an answer. All this time they acted like he wasn’t there, like he was just a stray dog that someone had brought home to argue whether they should keep him or not, the one who had the most blame, and now they were addressing him to speak. Finally. 

He began to open his mouth, hoping his voice wouldn’t quiver or croak from the cold to say that he had bigger matters in his life, so they could kick him out now, next morning, but they really shouldn’t argue about him, because it just wasn’t worth their time since clearly his path and their path was different. They were middle-class ordinary British people in downtown London going through a normal night of television and tea. On the other hand, he was just an American lost in the streets of a place a thousand miles from his home, playing a sickening game of catch and run who happened to have intercepted their peaceful night. The thought of his utterly hopeless situation made his stomach sick, and he felt like throwing up all of the nice cocoa on the expensive rug. He put the mug beside him and hid his face between his knees and let out a sigh. Let the people talk, he thought, he did not care. 

“See John?” the man with the deep voice said after the silence. “He doesn’t have a place to go.”

“Stop addressing him like he’s your goddamn puppy, Sherlock!”

“I am not addressing him like he's my puppy!”

“Mrs. Hudson,” the man who had yelled before had his voice lowered down to a hushed tone like he was trying to reason. But it was still full with disgust and anger all the same. “The last time Sherlock brought someone home like this…”

“Don’t you smell something burning?” Whatever it was that had happened last time, Frank was not going to hear it. It was weird how the voice that had been so deep only seconds before now sounded like that of a joyful person making a casual inquiry.

Indeed, now that he said it, there was a faint smell of something that had stayed for too long in an oven, and if Frank could smell it through is almost clogged-up nose, it must be quite evident. The thickish smell was like a mixture cinnamon, ginger, chocolate or any of that sort just before turning into ash and it hung like a thin cloak in the atmosphere of the cozy, warm room. 

“Oh!” someone cried in a panicked whisper. Then there was a frantic shuffling of slippers on the wooden tiles, which slowly faded away before amplifying a little but becoming distant again as they went down some sort of staircase. For a moment, there was silence and Frank could hear someone very near him sighing. What now? Frank thought. But then there was the shuffling again, barely audible- he couldn’t believe it and he thought that he was imagining it- somewhere under the dead quiet flat followed by a “Oh my goodness! The cookies!” and some more words uttered which couldn’t be made out.

“Sherlock…” one of them started.

They’re still here. The only person that had left was the lady. Frank didn’t know how many of them there had been- he had assumed about four because the talk was so disruptive and going in all directions but something about the way the man addressed the other told him that there were only two in the flat now. He was sure he had heard only one person leave. So there had only been three? His head started to ache now that it was calmer and he felt dizzy. On top of that, there was faint nausea sweeping over.

“Please,” the deep voice said, “For me. I can be responsible, John. I’ll try my best not to make it like last time. And this isn’t like last time.”

“Yes, this isn’t like last time, it’s worse.”

Frank half expected another voice to pop up, but it was the same deep voice again. “It will be okay. I know things you don’t know yet, about this person, John…” Now that the dizziness was making it difficult to breathe, the deep voice was strangely attracting, like it was the most masculine thing. Whatever. He really didn’t want to throw up cocoa all over the stunningly fine piece of rug and panic stroke like a lightening bomb when he realized with a shock that he might not be able to hold it down this time. The murmuring voice was blocked out completely and all of a sudden for a moment he seriously was about to break down and cry.

Instincts seized him first. Placing the cocoa mug aside, he silently got up in one swift move apparently startling the other- two, he couldn’t help but notice painfully. The two stopped their chat and stared at him identically with the international “what in the world” eyes. 

The door to the flat was probably locked and he wasn’t taking any chances. He walked across to his left, catching a glimpse of a kitchen looking like some sort of science lab- judging was for later, this was urgent- and was confronted with a door, a bit short and thin in width compared to the size of the house it was in. It was that moment- there had been several moments like this in Frank’s life- when he felt so happy to see that, so proud of himself for having found it- the door to the-

He swung the door open like he was breaking into the Bank Of England (oh my god had he just thought the bank of England) and the sight of white things in marble and the faint scent of soap that hung in the air was almost enough to calm him down. He set his right hand on the cool tile wall, closed his eyes and barely held himself, heart thumping, breathing in, breathing out.

“John..” the deep voice hushed, “Upstairs, bedtime, time to go…God look at the time… I’ll be downstairs working on that eyeball experiment…John? John?”

“Stop it! Sherlock! Last chance or I’m done with your silly games today!”

That’s when it came. He felt his insides flip inside-out and gripped onto the toilet seat for dear life as what had been sweet cocoa ten minutes ago came splashing down into the pool of toilet water. He managed to close the door next to him with his feet in case he made any weird sounds, as if they weren’t going to hear.   
His insides hurt like crazy. His knuckles where white-numb from holding onto the seat and for a moment, he thought he was going to break the white plastic. A thin trail of half-saliva-half-vomit followed like a string and probably messed up his hoodie as he put his head down.

There’s nothing more to come. He told himself in the darkness.

Yes there is, his body told him and there was a flash of the memory of the frozen hamburger he had gulped down earlier that day on the bench in the park. It came bursting out of him again, before he could breathe or relax. The double contradiction in his stomach muscles was horrible and he was gasping for air when it was done coming out of him. 

His insides ached like they had been ripped apart. He collapsed on the cold tiles of the bathroom and rested his back on the wall. Please, he begged when he thought there was going to be a third blow. He clasped his hand over his mouth and swallowed when something bulged in his esophagus but he could tell that this red alert from his body was hollow. It was probably just paranoia after the shock. He forced to lift his limp arm and push the flush and it all went down in the whoosh of clean water. 

His stomach hurt like hell. He clutched his own hair very tightly and rested his elbow on his knee. The dizziness hadn’t gone away. His hand fumbled behind him until it gripped toilet paper just hanging above his shoulders. He ripped about four columns and placed the folded texture of softness on his lips. The paper smelled like roses and soap. 

When he decided it was safe to open his mouth, he folded it once again he put it in his mouth, on top of his tongue and tried to wipe out most of the acid that was compelling him from swallowing his own saliva. He was careful not to push any gag reflex spots with his fingers while doing that. Then he threw away the disgusting clog in the toilet. 

By the time he pulled off another set of squares to wipe away the thin string of puke on his hoodie and jeans, he was aware of his head becoming very hot. He let go of his hair and put his hand on his forehead, his palm ice cold on the burning surface. Hastily wiping away the now cold liquid gue on his clothes so they looked like trails of spider webs after the brush, he curled up into a ball with his back against the wall. His head was aching like it was going to break apart and the insides of his ears throbbed painfully. He could feel his breath come out dangerously hot and dry through his jeans, smearing onto the skin of his knees. 

The people, out there, they probably thought he was drunk. They wouldn’t keep him, he was going to end up in the cold streets again. There was no money for hospitals, there was no Bob, all alone, he wasn’t even in New Jersey… The ache intensified a bit and he realized hot tears were filling up his eyes and trickling down his cheeks. He couldn’t help himself and he broke down into a sob and the hot tears kept falling. His nose became so clogged up that he had to breathe in jagged breaths through his mouth. He was so doomed. He was going to die like this, in a place so unfamiliar. There was no going back. This had been a bad idea, it was all his fault, he didn’t want to die, he was so scared, his head hurt so much…

“You alright in there?” there was a knock. With all his remaining strength, he flushed the toilet again. His head felt like it was going to break. He returned to his position of being curled up in a ball and rolled his head across the hard tiles on the wall. Fresh tears kept replacing the drying tearstains and his eyesight became foggy, and Frank feared that it might not be just because of the tears. He was shivering like crazy. His skull felt like it was about to crack open with his brain sizzling inside.  
He must have let out a moan because the man outside burst in.

“Are you…” from the abrupt halt of his voice, he had most likely noticed Frank’s tears. Seconds ticked, he was too caught up in the pain to make out whatever happened in between, but after a while, he felt slender but strong arms lift him up and carry him to a place. He wasn’t comfortable in another person’s arms and he tried to say he was okay, but the person shushed him and after realizing that he could die if he wasn’t taken care of with some type of medication right away, Frank managed to mutter a thank you and kept his mouth shut.


	2. Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank is sick and Sherlock helps John give him medicine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The relationships/characters/tags may change a little because I'm not sure where this story might go

The sheets were literally freezing- soft and fine like they had been ironed and left there in the cold for quite a while. The pillow felt exactly the same, only colder. 

The pain in his head had increased to a point where the aches in his stomach seemed like a side-thing now, but neither type of agony was ever forgotten. He could feel the insides of his throat had gone puffy from swelling because they felt like they were going to rip apart. More importantly, his throat stung from aridness all the time; no matter how frequently his tongue swallowed until his mouth was ash dry, it would feel like it was being turned into a specimen. He noticed he was swallowing apparently nothing way too often, which was getting in the way of his breathing and made him gag, and he realized he wasn’t giving a chance for saliva to fully form in his mouth. He stopped his tongue from its helpless struggles but only lasted a moment before coughing out and swallowing again. 

“John!” the loud cry rung around his throbbing ears and made his head spin. 

Frank lay there, helpless, chocking himself and sucking in air again, and this became some sort of cycle. He realized that he could make it without having to throw a fit longer if he stopped swallowing and breathing all together. The man kept calling out for the other man. Frank stopped his breathing and waited until spit formed in his mouth, swallowed, inhaled, and held his breath again. He was on his second repeat when he realized he didn’t have to wait. 

“Water,” he gasped and desperately hoped he had heard him because he wasn’t sure he could say it again.

There was a second of silence and he heard the man take off.

He was clueless of how much time had passed. He was beginning to wonder whether closing his eyes actually made a difference to the pain so he had slightly opened them, his eyes dangerously out of focus, when he felt something freezing touch his lips. 

He struggled to sit up, his head on the brink of splitting, and gripped the freezing glass with his shivering hands. The water lapsed and shook in front of his lips before he dared to gulp down a tiny sip. For a second, the hoarse, ripping pain on the surface of his inner throat was soothed, but it came back like before. The cold liquid fell down like a small chunk of ice in his stomach. 

“Aspirin? I brought Aspirin, it shouldn’t work, will it?” Frank heard him toss it to the ground right away. “Analgesic, Paracetamol, there’s also, uh… “ There was crackle of paper against paper. “Anti.... wait, Anti…” 

Cold hands gripped the back of his head and forehead. Equally icy fingers went in his mouth and made him open them so that whoever it was could see his throat. 

“He has high fever, swollen throat, and did you say he threw up?”

“Yes he did. But he flushed it away before I came in. Twice, I assume?”

“Doesn’t matter. This isn’t evidence for a case we’re searching for. So there is a possibility for food poisoning too.” Frank felt arms cross over him. 

There was a crackle of thin plastic cracking open and two round pills were placed in his palm. 

“You’re not allergic to these are you?”

Frank glanced down and noticed the familiar, recently-opened package of Paracetamol on the sheets right beside his knees. Who the fuck was allergic to Paracetamol? He shook his head and swallowed the pills without throwing up or chocking, which was a miracle judging by how much his throat hurt. Pills never started working immediately, but it must have had a placebo effect because the sore parts seemed to cool off a bit after. Maybe it was just the cold water he had swallowed the pills with.

“Sherlock, there’s a tray filled with all these tubs in the kitchen cupboards, downstairs, the one way on the left next to the window. At the very top.”

“Above the sample jars, got it.” 

“And a spoon. Get a spoon.”

“Got it.” The footsteps stopped after a moment. “Should we call Mrs. Hudson?”

“Nope.” The answer was immediate.

“Um… You sure?”

“No Sherlock. Just go.”

“Oh… okay.”

There was the shuffling of someone hurrying out, muttering “sample jars, sample jars…” over and over again to himself. 

“She has plenty to worry about with her burnt biscuits.” the muttered words were barely comprehendible to Frank. “It’s going to be okay,” the man assured him, putting a firm hand on the back of his shoulder.

Frank looked at the man feverishly and noticed he had a very friendly impression. Large, round, brown eyes that made him look like he actually worried and cared for Frank. From the thin faint lines that crossed his face when he looked up to him, the man looked older than Frank, but he also looked way younger than him at the same time. It was confusing. His hair was a remarkable color. He was blond, mostly but there were also multiple grey and brown strands mixed together. The man reminded Frank of something he couldn’t recall. 

The man put his hand on his neck pulled away after feeling the temperature. Something about the way he did it reminded Frank of the doctors back in the states and he was able to immediately calm down after he found himself trusting him completely. 

Frank noticed he still had tear stains. He wiped them away, slightly embarrassed. He struggled to lay down but the person put his hand behind his back. 

“Not yet,” he said. 

Frank sighed and buried his face in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. He listened to the rhythm of himself breathing.

“Were you out there for long?” the person- he was going to call him doctor- asked. His voice had the volume of a whisper but he wasn’t whispering. That quiet voice that was suitable in silent hospital office rooms.

Frank didn’t answer. 

His breathing must have hitched because he felt the man pat his back soothingly and say, “It’s okay. Sherlock’s coming. Where is he? What, is he like making the medicine?” apparently letting the question slip. 

There was the sound of hurried footsteps again. 

“I brought it.” His voice broke the silence of the room. “Where did you get all these? These aren’t even labeled. Hey, is he okay?”

“He will be if you give those to me.”

Seconds of silence ticked. When he turned his head up again, a pretty large spoon filled with indigo liquid was in the air in front of him. He hesitated for a moment before sipping the thick fluid. Obviously it was bitter but there was also an exaggerated sweetness to it, like grapes that had been left out to rot in the sun for too long. He stared at the blonde man pour another, most likely from the same glass bottle judging from the similar hue.

“You’ll have to take another.”

Indeed, barely a few of the bottles lined up together in the basket-shaped canteen were labeled, and if the man was giving him something he shouldn’t have, it was too late.  
Frank took another spoonful thankfully, and then another, this time from a different bottle. A white one this time. The aftertaste lingered in his tongue like fume-spitting fungi growing out of his inner cheeks. A mouthful of clear water made it a bit better. 

“You said he had food poisoning.” 

“Yes.”

The other man, not the blonde one, looked at him like he wanted to say something. He hesitated, before taking out something from behind his back and setting it on the floor beside the bed Frank was on. 

“If you start to feel like dizzy…” 

Frank got it, nodded and croaked “Thank you,” again.

“Is he allowed to have throat candy?” the man blurted out.

The blonde man looked at Frank and raised his eyebrows. “You want some?”

“Thank you.”

He held a piece of an unopened sweet in his palm. They-the people in the room- were nice, really nice, in fact, and Frank wanted to curse his emotion swings due to the sickness for making him want to burst into tears.

“Well.” The doctor next to him arranged the bottles except for the two which he had fed to Frank. He put them on the nightstand. 

However nice, they were though, Frank wished they would go away so he could lay lie down. But they didn’t leave him wishing for long because as soon as the one who played doctor took the glass of water out of Frank’s hand, he started to the door, holding the canteen of medicine in one arm. The tips of his fingers touched the light switch, one foot out the hall and one foot in the doorway. 

“Sherlock,” he said, turning to the other man.

The man who was still in the middle of the room stood for an extra moment before walking out slowly. The expression on his face was unreadable.

The doctor switched off the lights before the man even reached the doorway, enveloping Frank in darkness. 

Maybe it was the placebo effect, or the darkness that calmed him down. It was easier breathing, if he did very slowly. He pulled the sheets out from their position tucked deep under the pillows and crawled below the covers. His head complained and rebelled as he shifted his position to lie down, but stopped after it was rested on a soft pillow. Nonetheless, it still hurt not any less than it did before. The only thing that had gotten better was his throat and the fact that he was shivering less.

He closed his eyes. It was going to be a long night. 

Through his rough breathing, he heard someone walk away from the doorway.


	3. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The relationships/characters/tags may change a bit because I don't know exactly where this story might go

Frank didn’t really sleep; anything close he ever did was close his eyes and drift off as his mind got totally blank, only to wake again from the uncomfortableness. The annoying thing was, thanks to the medicine, no pain was intense enough to prevent him from sleeping but there were these aches, in his head, between his bones, in his muscles, on his very skin- everywhere that he felt he was going to break apart if he stayed in one position for too long. He felt like he had just woken up from the dead after a hundred years. Long time ago, the sheets and pillow had been so soft and welcoming, but now it was just another obstacle, hot from his own heat but cold at the same time, another thing that threatened to push into him and strangle him. He was a thousand year old mummy trapped inside a coffin.

He thought of his mom, he thought of highschool, he thought of the kid called Gerard Way. There were the only things that seemed to comfort him, the only things that lingered behind his eyelids when he wanted to cry. Memories way back in the past, when things weren’t messed up yet, not the complete chaos that had happened in the past few months. 

After what seemed like countless amounts of toss and turns, his limbs turned limp so he stayed with his back against the mattress, the position that gave the least amount of pressure to his body that he could think of. His spine throbbed like it was going to crack. The bed sheets felt like knives nipping on his skin and felt like it was going to leave scars. He was cold, but something told him that the covers weren’t going to make a difference. He tossed them away, his arm complaining with sharp pains on his elbow, shoulder and wrist. Now nothing bothered his over-sensitive skin besides the mattress underneath. It was such a weird feeling. 

Out of curiosity, brought his fingertips to the fair skin of his arm and carefully stroked it. The scarfskin stung like needles were poking the trail of his fingers and it also ached below the epidermis, as if there was some sort of chain reaction. 

Despite the aches, he was gripping something, something that crackled in his palm and he realized that he hadn’t eaten the throat candy that they had given him. He had expected it was only a wrapping paper he was mysteriously clinging on to, but no. There was a round and solid existence inside the plastic. His throat was better, minor comparing to the addition of all the aches but was still way too far from normal and could need some improving so he slipped the candy in his mouth. 

It numbed his throat and his head got one step clearer but it only lasted for a while. Estimating time was useless. If he went by his brain clock, it should be ten in the morning by now. But it was dark, not even a tint of blue out the window by a messy desk with piles of paper to indicate that it was even dawn, that the rays of the sun were even close.

The sun. The thought made him think of the roots of his existence, how the earth spun and how the rays slipped in from the corners of the sphere. How small but also how big he felt, what would happen if he just died this night, what the universe would think if he gave up, if it even cared at all. If it even had a future planned ahead for him. Then he got awfully lonely and started to miss Bob, miss everyone, get nostalgic as hell and wear himself out with emotions like that until he wasn’t sure if the tears rolling down were from the physical tiredness or straight from his heart. He had wanted morning to come, but at this point he wanted time to stop, but it didn’t, the world moved on like nothing they didn’t give a fuck, cars moving to and fro in the blinding city lights and he was seventeen again, lost and alone with suicidal thoughts that were twice as depressing because he knew he would still be lonely and wouldn’t be able to change a thing if he stopped being a part of the world. He didn’t know if he could possibly get any weaker.

Sometimes one of them would come, put a wet cloth on top of his head in the dark. It was the doctor when he felt his temperature like before, and it was the other one if he just changed the cloths. It was always comforting to have another person with him, make sure he didn’t die or something, and it was dark so he didn’t have to hide his pain in front of a complete stranger. He could just lie down, be himself and try to relax while the other person sat next to him and checked if he was doing okay. The pain seemed to loosen up whenever that happened and it was during that time when he got the closest to sleeping. He snapped back out after he left and the cloth got warm again, of course.

The temperature did funny things. One moment he was hot, tossing away the covers in an attempt to breathe, the next he was freezing so he wrapped himself back in those sheets, shivering. The room spun, the bed tipped forwards and backwards, and much more than once he had to curl up in a ball and put his fingers on top of his eyelids, failing to fight back a moan, because it felt like his eyeballs were rolling backwards in a speed he could not control. 

That was when he felt someone slip in bed next to him, wrap his freezing hand around Frank’s rigid wrists. He couldn’t bring himself to look up. He was so dizzy but he felt his tense wrists loosen up to the large hand skimming over his face to cover up his eyelids. His hands, now with nothing to do, gripped the wrist of the other person. 

The other hand held the back of his head. 

“Are you okay?” the person whispered in the darkness. He had the deep voice. So it wasn’t the doctor.

All that came out was a whimper when he tried to answer. He just gripped the man’s wrists more tightly, hoping his body language would tell him to keep his hand in the same position. 

“I’m dizzy,” he managed to whimper in barely audible tone.

The man shifted. 

“Don’t go,” Frank moaned out, louder this time. He was so sick of one of them coming in, coming out, giving him comfort only to disappear within five minutes, only to come back again when he was in the brink of having a breakdown. 

“I’m not going,” he said as he moved over the bed to bring the covers on top of them. Frank gritted his teeth and dug his nails into the man’s wrist as he brought him closer so that Frank’s back touched his chest. Frank felt an arm slip from under and wrap around his stomach. The man didn’t seem to mind his nails- he kept his hand firm against his eyes. 

Frank felt his breath on the back of his neck as he focused on not losing his way to dizziness. 

Both of them stayed in that position for a painfully long while before Frank found himself drifting off, his head still in a blinding ache.

 

“Ha!” he sounded shaky but still okay on the margin as he kicked the basketball, volleyball, whatever it was, to the middle of the cement field. It bounced once on the floor and slowly dribbled, each bounce a tiny bit smaller than the latter, before it just stuck to the ground and vibrated. When Gerard was like this, super edgy, you had to be careful not to push him off the marginal end, or he would not be okay. And if Gerard was not okay, he became quite a mess- nervous, so touchy and talking about everything with his hand gestures going this way and that. Not that Frank disliked it- that was not the case at all- it was just that most people didn’t like it when they got pushed over the edge into their panic zone, and he assumed Gerard was one among the majority.

“Whoa, calm down,” he said, and to be honest, his voice sounded a bit shaken-up too. Nonetheless, he gripped his friend by the shoulders and looked at him straight in the eye. “Nobody knows yet. Only we know. Unless someone who cared to spend Thursday night in the school terraces instead of going home eavesdropped on us or something.” The moment he said it, he regretted it. If the thought of someone else listening to their disturbing conversation made chills go over Frank’s spine for the second time of the day, then he had certainly pressed Gerard’s panic button. 

“No no no no, my mistake,” he said, Gerard turning paler by the second, “Besides, we don’t know for sure yet. Okay, there are some clues and we could make up a story and it would all seem to fit like voilà! a Sherlock episode but we’re just students in the school. Maybe we’re wrong. (Gerard’s shocked eyes said otherwise.) We’ll come again, tomorrow, after school. Magnusson said to stay on Friday too, right? We can talk about it and look at it again with Ray and Bob.”

Gerard meekly nodded and didn’t ask why they were leaving out Patrick or Andy. 

“You okay?” Frank asked.

“Yeah,” he said, looking slightly worn out. Eight and a half hours of school plus detention was written all over his grimy white shirt that had certainly been clean in the morning and his crimson tie that now hung loose and dead. The pencil led marks on his fingers and hand that had slowly accommodated throughout the day appeared on his folded-up sleeves as well. As Frank watched him slightly toss his hair to the side to get his overgrown curls of bangs out of his eyes, he realized how much time had passed. The sky had long since turned red and now there were hints of darkness indicating twilight. 

Frank let his arms drop by his side. Maybe he had gripped him too strongly for more than the sufficient amount of time. 

Gerard didn’t seem to think it weird. He let out a sigh. “It’s all my fault isn’t it. I wound you up to this, if I hadn’t fought with him I wouldn’t have had detention on Wednesday, and gone up to the fucking terrace cause I couldn’t control my sense of…” he shoved his hands in the air “…despair…only to find out that the combination lock hadn’t been opened in ages…” He trailed off after realizing that reciting the whole story again had no point.

"Well, at least Mycroft got detention too," he assured, as if that was meant to be some sort of consolation. 

School was hell on earth. The people aside, the system was the mortal-world-version of Satan’s pit, if there was such thing. It wasn’t for the fact that they made you sit hours a day in the classroom with teacher droning on and on about important things that were going to be in the tests which looked like rubbish until you couldn’t take it anymore. It was for the fact that almost everyone, it seemed, in the school, since the moment he first went in as a freshman, didn’t think it was rubbish. He often found himself staring at peers the exact same age, taking notes in vain. It sometimes did ring something at him, told him there was a future to prepare for, college applications to form, what the hell was he doing staring out into space while the teacher taught essential stuff for exams, to do what everyone else was doing, and how his mom would be upset again if she saw his grades. But he couldn’t get his shit together, and whenever he tried and sort of did manage to, he got miserable. Nobody seemed to understand him. They thought he cared for his future so they told him how hard he should try to make a satisfying high school student record, and when he didn’t try, they looked at him in a weird way, almost pity. Everyone except himself was like that, in their late teens, working so hard for their own future, and of course Gerard was no exception. Frank didn’t enjoy it when the topic of college popped out during a conversation with his friends, and judging by the things he did, Gerard was prone to be the one to bring it up, since everyone knew what college he was going to go. But Gerard never did talk about college, or his future except his occasional half-hearted rants on art and Frank liked it that way. Frank also couldn’t pin out what it was, but whenever he thought of Gerard studying, like what most people in the school actually did, instead of getting the usual confusion, he felt weirdly happy.

Gerard looked at him and Frank saw the panic in his eyes slowly melt away. 

“Well, it’s getting dark,” he said, bringing the adrenaline-provoking topic to a close. In subtitle, he was saying, ‘Better go before it gets late because there’s more impending things to do besides running around an empty school.’

Frank shouldn’t be disappointed, what was there to be disappointed about? It wasn't the first time he had been turned down by a friend like this. But he couldn’t help himself. They could continue like this, go on forever till the excitement was over, but instead they were folding it back in half just as easily as they had tumbled into the brand new project, like a misplaced piece of paper being stuffed in a folder labeled- Frank wondered what the name of that would be in Gerard’s head. If he even had a folder and cared to label it, that was.

For the last time, he looked at his friend's face before saying, “Right. Better go.”

Gerard wasn’t lost, not like Frank was.


End file.
